Lesley Bennett

Lesley Bennett

Founder, Lesley Bennett Community Development Consultancy

Papua New Guinea

A highly experienced practitioner with demonstrated capabilities in program design and delivery, capacity development and partnership brokering. This has been built through extensive experience working in both the PNG Extractive and Renewable Resource Sectors, as well as working alongside government at all levels, private sector and their industry representative bodies; civil society, including women, youth church groups, and donors.
A key focus has been on facilitating partnerships based on careful assessment of stakeholder needs and interests and an evaluation of their capabilities and comparative advantages. A commitment to the principles of empowerment, mentoring and sustainable growth have been central to this effort.
As a program specialist, I possess highly developed skills across the program cycle, including needs assessment, strategy setting, program design implementation, and, monitoring and evaluation. Recent initiatives have included the PNG Women in Mining agenda where the focus has been on capacity development and targeting the flow of benefits from projects to reach women through pragmatic projects and capacity initiatives. This experience has also included working with young people, and linking communities to service delivery and policy initiatives. Recognition of these efforts locally has led to international exposure to share the success of PNG programs with donors and others in developing countries.